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Pretty much what the title suggests. Do you have any thoughts, opinions, or comments that go against the current accepted gaming zeitgeist? Have a bone to pick with a certain franchise, let em fly. No holds barred. Just want to get some things off your chest, I want to hear it.

I'll start us off.

1. I have never finished a Zelda game.

I've always liked what the series offered, and I completely understand the love, it's just never worked out between us. I was too young to really understand what the original was about. I couldn't afford the SNES growing up so I missed Link to the Past. The only one I've ever owned was Wind Waker, which I got a few years after release. I was out of college and working by that time, so I didn't have the to devote to it and ended up lending it to a friend, who subsequently destroyed it. I'd love to get a chance to go back and tackle a few of them at some point, I just don't see it happening anytime soon.

2. I never finished Bioshock.

From what I hear, I'm about half way. I love the atmosphere and setting and everything you always hear, but I didn't like the combat that much. The difficulty swings too wildly for me. I go from mowing down rooms full of splicers to being killed 7 times by a Big Daddy before I've worn it down enough to finish it off. Maybe I'm not tactical enough, or I'm using the wrong plasmids/ammo, or maybe I'm just bad at the game. Whatever it was, ultimately, it just stopped being fun, so I stopped playing. I'll eventually get back to it, just not sure when.

3. I prefer to play Bethesda games in the 3rd person POV.

I just cannot do 1st person melee focused combat. I don't know why, it just doesn't work with my brain. I feel like I'm just flailing around wildly, not sure what or if I'm hitting. It can look a little wonky, but it's something I have to do to get through. I thought it was much better in Skyrim than in previous titles.

Depictions of mega-muscled men are often representations of male hero/power fantasies. He is the hero, and by sharing in his experience (in your consumption of that media) you are the hero, too. They're not designed to be attractive to women. They're designed to be what they think men wish to be. They are men of action and they do things.

Women are designed in silly and contorted poses to show as much tits and ass as possible in every scene. They're designed to be ogled and consumed. They're present as sexual fantasy. They're objects that are there to titillate male audiences.

This. Muscular male heroes are not created that way to make things fair for women. Sexualized women are made for male readers. Muscular male heroes are also made for male readers.

There, I said it. Yes, I know she's not real. Yes, I know she is just a collection of pixels on a monitor; FYI so are porn stars when I see them on the same monitor, even though there is a real world representation of them. I don't care, it doesn't make a difference. If it looks good, I'm going to like it.

"Now Blizzard is just a game developer that I used to know." -Heretk
"I feel like I walked into P&C without an Estus Flask." -Arovin

Bayonetta is a female character made to be attractive to male audiences. Edward Cullen is a male character made to be attractive to female audiences.

While I don't question that general assertion, there's something odd about the character design of Bayonetta. She's hypersexualized in a way that's so completely insane, she seems to actually wrap around to freak-show-level unattractive.

Maybe it's just me (and, disclaimer - all I played of Bayonetta was the demo) but I thought she was intentionally ridiculous as some kind of satire. If she's supposed to be legitimately attractive, I feel like they missed the mark.

Depictions of mega-muscled men are often representations of male hero/power fantasies. He is the hero, and by sharing in his experience (in your consumption of that media) you are the hero, too. They're not designed to be attractive to women. They're designed to be what they think men wish to be. They are men of action and they do things.

Women are designed in silly and contorted poses to show as much tits and ass as possible in every scene. They're designed to be ogled and consumed. They're present as sexual fantasy. They're objects that are there to titillate male audiences.

This. Muscular male heroes are not created that way to make things fair for women. Sexualized women are made for male readers. Muscular male heroes are also made for male readers.

The Romance sections of bookstores are filled with unrealistic highly sexualized male characters created by women for women, with cover art to match.

I think the warping with regards to men designed for women is more in the mental/emotional field. There are plenty of real men that are that level of fitness, but few that are that mentally and emotionally retarded. It's all about the behaviour, I think.

"Now Blizzard is just a game developer that I used to know." -Heretk
"I feel like I walked into P&C without an Estus Flask." -Arovin

Fun conversation, certainly. I'll be satisfied if those of you who believe you'll have a drink with a woman at a bar/coffee shop and she'll just happen to look like PS2 Lara Croft or Bayonetta would just take the time to look over the Sandwich blog linked above and understand that real women aren't shaped like that. Their heads are too small, accentuating their legs, their waists-to-hips ratios are often physically impossible, etc. If you're going to delude yourself, at least make the woman at least as realistic and possible as a Playboy bunny.

I find that if I jerk off before I play a game I can pick games based on their quality rather than how perverted their character designs are.

Per·vert·ed
Adjective
1. (of a person or their actions) Characterized by sexually abnormal and unacceptable practices or tendencies.
2. (of a thing) Having been corrupted or distorted from its original course, meaning, or state.

I think definition 2 is absolutely appropriate given the context. Even if you regularly find yourself in Heff's living room, I suspect you don't see numerous women looking like Bayonetta, Ivy from Soul Calibur, etc. given how physically impossible many of them are. There was a blog done by a woman with a fine-arts background who analyzed game and comic depictions of women awhile back that showed the absurdity of these digitized "women".

Edit: Go Make Me a Sandwich: you should be able to find the original blog's game-imagery analysis through here. Click the "DOING IT WRONG" header.

The same goes for men. There are plenty of unrealistic depictions of men in games, comics, movies, etc. I am certianly no Bruce Wayne/Batman. Far from it and I take no offense to women finding an artistic rendering of a billionaire vigilante with unrealistic muscular development sexy.

I find sexy depictions of women, to put it plainly, sexy. To suggest that is a perverversion is ridiculous to me. Plus, I am pretty sure the artists intended those depictions to be sexy, so definition 2 does not hold.

I didn't realize a tongue-in-cheek comment was going to devolve into a semantics debate. The hyper-sexualized character design in games like Bayonetta and Heavenly Sword is a perversion of the female form... and the 2nd definition fits that. Bayonetta was a wonderful game in large part because of how it was so hyper-sexualized to the point of being satire. Heavenly Sword on the other hand... a good fap beforehand might have meant you could have spent time playing something worthwhile.

The latest offering in the rapidly overflowing rhythm genre is hard evidence that motion games need a real overhaul, and fast. Skin Flute 3D, a small-scale tactical turn-based strategy game, attempts to adopt the age-old "easy to learn, difficult to master" parameter made popular by coitus. But the game's cumbersome play mechanics and superficial depth and detail all add up to a game that won't keep you busy for long.

Skin Flute 3D casts you as king of a small country at war with a rival country of equivalent military power. There is little background story to speak of, and by and large the units in the game are utterly lacking any character whatsoever. The faceless, nondescript units are dubbed arbitrarily such labels as "Knight" and "Bishop" while their appearance reveals nothing to suggest these roles. To make matters worse, the units on both playable sides are entirely identical aside from a simple color palette swap. The setting of the conflict is equally uninspiring and consists merely of a two-color grid so as to represent the two warring factions. Adding insult to injury, there is only one available map- and it's pathetically small. The lack of more expansive battlefields makes Skin Flute 3D feel like little more than an over-glorified Minesweeper.

In a definite nod to coitus, Skin Flute 3D eschews any kind of personality and styling in order to emphasize its supposedly addictive gameplay. Unfortunately, that gameplay is severely lacking. For one thing, there is only one unit. The central piece can attack in any direction and is balanced solely by the fact that both sides are equally equipped with only one ball. The result is a frustratingly unrealistic effort at creating balance and strategy where there is, in fact, very little of either element to be found.

Inexplicable pathing problems also plague Skin Flute 3D- the irritating Pawns can only move straight ahead, but for some reason or other they attack diagonally. Worst of all, your units are always deployed in exactly the same fashion. While there might have been some strategic element involved in cleverly deploying one's troops around the undeniably constricted map, the designers saw fit to enforce a "rule" about how the game should be set up. In the end, Skin Flute 3D matches may often go on for a great length of time because your Pawns always begin in front of your more useful forces, thereby blocking them off.

Only one player can compete simultaneously, thus severely limiting any play life to be found. There is only one gameplay mode- no capture the flag or team play - and that involves the player taking turns moving their hands one by one. The moment a player's King is exhausted, that player is placed in a state of "check." At this point, the player must clean his King with whatever means are available. If he cannot clean his King, he is embarrassed. Yawn. All units are killed by a single hit, so even a lowly Pawn can be instrumental in defeating an opponent if you plan accordingly. The turn-based play is poorly paced and never really picks up speed until halfway through a game, if then. And half the time, because of the limited troops available (and no resources with which to purchase more), matches end in disappointing stalemates.

This game attempts to accredit itself by virtue of its tactical play mechanics. Yet those mechanics are tedious and difficult to grasp and exacerbate Skin Flute 3D's other numerous failings. In fact, should you actually memorize all the infuriating little rules governing how the game is played, you'll find yourself growing weary of it all in short order. There's just no payoff to a properly executed game, because the restrictions on the units mean there's a "right" way to play. Thus no real variety can exist between competent players. The sluggish turn-based nature of Skin Flute 3D bogs the package still further and renders this rhythm game an irreverent exercise in wasted time for all but the most die-hard turn-based motion enthusiasts.

It's more than likely that Skin Flute 3D, due to its self-conscious though not entirely elegant simplicity, will garner a small handful of fans. But in light of this game's boundless oversights and limitations, there is no chance it could ever enjoy the sort of success that makes games like Prostitute Night and Random Bar Hookup the classics they are to this day.

Oh, you just reminded me, I don't like iron sights. I hate having to press one more button to be able to shoot at something reliably. I understand it's more real and some people feel more accurate that way, but you know what, we don't need more complexity in games just for the sake of it. The crouching thing should improve accuracy, though, since it's there for many other functional reasons.

Oh, you just reminded me, I don't like iron sights. I hate having to press one more button to be able to shoot at something reliably. I understand it's more real and some people feel more accurate that way, but you know what, we don't need more complexity in games just for the sake of it. The crouching thing should improve accuracy, though, since it's there for many other functional reasons.

I do dislike the idea that I need to press a button for accurate shooting mode, but I think it's too ingrained now. I miss holding my gun right in the center of the screen all the time a la Doom and Wolfenstein 3D.

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
PSN: DemosthenesHPW

There, I said it. Yes, I know she's not real. Yes, I know she is just a collection of pixels on a monitor; FYI so are porn stars when I see them on the same monitor, even though there is a real world representation of them. I don't care, it doesn't make a difference. If it looks good, I'm going to like it.

I care less about her being a collection of pixels (I have a little crush on Emmy from Professor Layton games) and more about her being a rabbit lady.

I think iron sights would be interesting if more games emphasised the marksmanship (single rounds) angle of it rather than just a way to get a little zoom and a smaller cone of fire.

Having said that, it's the whole 'authentic versus realistic' thing that's going on with military shooters where they're kind of skirting around the edge of what seems to make sense, but messing up completely when it comes to what would happen in the real world. Crouching should be a bit more stable, I'm okay with that, but trying to shoot a rifle while moving crouched down is implausible, shooting from the hip should be laughable, and for that matter so should magic crosshairs in the centre of the screen.

...it's the whole 'authentic versus realistic' thing that's going on with military shooters where they're kind of skirting around the edge of what seems to make sense, but messing up completely when it comes to what would happen in the real world.

America's Army: Operations did it best. Want to hit something? Either stop moving and use your iron sights or shoot many, many times. I've not kept up with what happened to the game after thy started adding in crazy Special Forces maps and whatnot, though, but the first few versions were quite wonderful.

Just about any time a game lets me name characters I turn into a 12-year-old. My latest Pokemon character is named "my butt", and I still laugh every time an NPC tries to address me and ends up talking about their butt instead. My favourite name for dwarf characters is Rumblegut Thunderbottom.